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Controversy in Trench Drama: Molière's TfiRTVTTT and the Struggle for Influence by Julia Prest. Palgrave Macmillan. New York: 2014. ISBN 978-1-137-34399-4. Pp. 260 (Hbk). $95.00.
Few controversies, debates, riots, or other legendary fracases in theatre history are more famous than what ensued in France from 1664 to 1669 over Molière's Tartuffe. Julia Prest's study provides an indispensible contribution to the history of the play by adding to our understanding of the debate and challenging long-standing, commonplace notions regarding what made Tartuffe a controversial play during that time.
Interpretations of the events tend to assume a central argument: with a title character who was a religious hypocrite, a faux dévot professing piety while practicing seduction and greed, the play provoked the ire of the members of Compagnie du SaintSacrement, who exerted their influence to have the play banned. Only after petitions and private performances moved public opinion in favor of the play, did Louis XIV lift the ban on performances. Founded in the late 1620s, the Company of the Holy Sacrament became the most important of the Counter-Reformation dévot groups to emerge in the wake of the Council of Trent. Made up of laymen and clerics, the Company functioned as a secret society manifesting power through members holding high positions in church, municipal, and state government.
In a careful study of the politico-religious context of the 1660s, Prest challenges received ideas about the play and about the controversy surrounding its performances. She argues that the root of Tartuffe's controversial appearance was not its portrayal of religious hypocrisy as perceived by the Saint-Sacrement, but its arrival on the scene at the moment that Louis XIV was attempting to exert his control over the Jansenist movement. The publication of Augustinus in 1640 by the Bishop of Ypres, Cornelius Jansen, which put forth controversial doctrines on the matter of grace, provoked the Catholic Church to ban the document and suppress its supporters. "Theological debates about grace sat at the heart of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in particular, and silence on the matter was seen to be crucial in maintaining unity within the Catholic Church at this delicate time of reform and renewal," writes Prest (139). Pope...